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RESULTS OF THE LATEST CFSCC MEETING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC ON 10/22/97
NAME CHANGE IS SHELVED, SUHADOLNIK RESEARCH IS DEBATED AT GOVERNMENT MEETING:
The U.S. government CFS Coordinating Committee met in Washington on Wednesday, October 22, 1997. The committee decided to set aside the CHANGE-THE-NAME project until future scientific research may merit a name change for the illness. The committee's working group on the name change issue was disbanded.
The committee also debated the value of Suhadolnik's research on a potential biomarker for CFS. Prof. Anthony Komaroff of Harvard University discussed new information he had obtained about Suhadolnik's work, and about a confirmatory study involving 50 patients (and 50 health controls) soon to be published. It seems that Suhadolnik's work does not show a perfect correlation between the marker and CFS patients, as preliminary reports had suggested. Many patients show negative to the test, and several healthy patients show positive. The CDC's William Reeves expressed doubt that Suhadolnik's test would prove to be very useful, but Dr. Nancy Klimas said that the research was still very impressive despite the new clarifications.
The recent physician education teleconference was reviewed and plans were discussed for a follow-up conference. The AHEC government network alone reached at least 1000 viewers, but data was still being analyzed that will indicate how many of those viewers were health professionals.
The previously planned NIH workshop on pediatric CFS was set aside due to lack of sufficient science, and in it's place there will be a research conference on the same topic to be held in association with the next meeting of the committee.
The next CFSCC meeting will be held on April 28-29, 1998 in Washington, DC.
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